Healthcare: A Priviledge or a Right?
Posted By iacpv on March 10, 2010
Is everyone entitled to healthcare? Ideally yes, but according to the media, hospitals, insurance companies and our laws, the answer is no.
That comes as a shock for those of us who grew up thinking that medical society doctors is noble and humane. Maybe it is, but what is noble and humane about shutting people out of life saving treatment simply because they have little or no insurance? In the movies and in story books, they were the good guys, they were the heroes, they didn’t let the lack of money stand in the way of helping those who were sick. Hospitals and their staff were nurturing, their business was making people healthy, saving lives. Now, they are in the business of making money. Ask anyone who has become sick or who has had a loved one has become sick with little or no insurance and you will find out quickly how disposable people are. Oh, there was a time when you could get a little help and understanding. At one time you could depend on your physician to be genuinely concerned about your health.
The movie “John Q” starring Academy Award winning actor Denzel Washington, dramatizes how de-sensitized our healthcare system has become. The fact that hsopitals were put on alert when the movie opened speaks volumes. The new reality is-if you don’t have the means, you don’t count and that mentality is not exclusive to healthcare. Our country is full of sick people. Good people who need help but can’t get it. Is it fair that the friendly, neighborhood, serial killer can get medical attention because his job provides healthcare and you can’t because yours doesn’t?
I’ll use myself as a perfect example: A few years ago, when I was preparing for my then fiance’s arrival from England, I had a flare. I was working for a small software company in downtown Denver for about six weeks. This was a new and permanent position, after a string of temporary jobs, so I had not been there long enough to qualify for insurance. I knew I could not afford to stay home and get better because I could not afford, so I wasn’t taking, the medications that would keep my condition stabilized. The only one I could afford was prednisone, which is relatively cheap, so the lack of proper medications and stress probably contributed to the flare.
Soon my condition was so bad that at one point, all I could do was get up and drag myself to work and then drag myself back home and sleep until the next morning so I could do it again and it was getting harder and harder. I finally went to see my doctor and she reluctantly took some test (because I was uninsured) and gave me the bad news that my liver was storing iron and it was causing a form of hepatitis and it was very serious. She never mentioned that I should be hospitalized, just that it required medical attention, which is what I thought she was. Her remedy was for me to increase my prednisone, quit my job and rest as much as possible. Two weeks later, I was getting worse, so I called her to let her know that new symptoms were taking place and she finally told me to check myself into the hospital. I was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis, sinusitis, dehydration, muscle fatigue and a host of other problems. I had wittled down to 85 lbs. After a few days of steroids and antibiotics, my condition stabilized and I was released.
My fiance’ was worried that I might not make it, so he surprised me by coming over earlier than planned. Coming from a country where healthcare is a given, he didn’t understand the way I was being treated and because I didn’t understand it, I couldn’t explain it to him. Not long after that, my legs gave out on me and I was told that I needed an MRI to find out what was going on but because I had no insurance, I could not have the $800.00 procedure. My physicians answer to the problem was to stick an band-aid in it, i.e., stick me in a wheel chair and give me pain killers and come back when you have insurance.
I couldn’t get insurance because I had no job. My new husband’s job with IBM, was contractual so he wasn’t offered insurance. The Social Services dept. at the hospital, told me that there really is no way to expedite medical insurance for me, because we had to wait for some medical board to go over my records to determine whether or not I was disabled. I was already going through an appeal process with Disability and they couldn’t help me until I was approved. All of these entities knew how precarious my situation was and were all unified in their refusal to help me.
There was a certain, sympathetic tone to every rejection but the one I had a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that my doctor, whom I had been seeing for years, was going to let me deteriorate and I was extremely hurt and depressed. I thought that we had a common goal, a relationship and my dillusion was a slap in the face. It was apparent that I really wasn’t important enough to help, quality of life meant nothing. It was a scary, humbling and degrading experience and one that I have experienced many times. Just like money can buy you a lawyer that will ensure justice, it can buy you a doctor that cares and a long high quality life.
Sure enough, when I returned with insurance a few months later, my physician’s attitude, my options, her level of committment, completely changed. By this time my legs and whatever was wrong with them, had improved but in case it happened again, here is a nice orthopedic surgeon that can help you. I discovered while she was writing out a nice pile of prescriptions, that there were certain medications she thought I should be taking but because she didn’t think I could afford them, she didn’t offer them as options.
So I had to be near death in order to get medical attention and even then it was reluctant and almost too late. That situation might have been prevented and not so costly if people weren’t making decisions about healthcare based on ones socio-economic situation. Just because a person doesn’t have money or access to insurance doesn’t mean that their lives are any less important than someone who does.
When a person loses their insurance due to job loss, they have three options: Private insurance, Cobra (a law that provides continuation coverage requirements applicable to group health plans). Cobra was a component of the massive Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 and became law COBRA became law in 1986, or CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) for households with children younger than 18 and annual income under 30,000.
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